County, state officials say election protections are in place

Westchester election officials say there's no reason for concern over the threat of Russian meddling in the 2018 midterm elections -- at least not locally and not in terms of votes themselves.

According to authorities, the county has safeguards in place to protect vote security.

"Every vote will count," says Reginald Lafayette, the Democratic chairman of the county Board of Elections. "We don't talk publicly about our security measures, because if we do, that means we will be giving out our secrets."

State officials say they're also bolstering election security, spending millions of dollars this year on cybersecurity and new regulations for online political ads and transparency laws.

They say New York was not among the states targeted in 2016 because the voting machines in the state are not connected to the internet.